Ectopisted migratorius
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"The Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, was a species of pigeon that once flooded the skies of eastern North America. They were named for their migratory habits both in the common name and Latin; their latin name, Ectopistes migratories, translating roughly to "migratory wanderer". They migrated in enormous flocks, constantly on the search for food, shelter, and breeding grounds. They once numbered between 3 and 5 billion, and were the most abundant bird in North America, possibly on Earth. The noise produced by flocks of passenger pigeons was described as deafening and unmusical, able to be heard from miles away.
More than 130 Passenger Pigeon fossils have been found across 25 US states, with some dating as far back as 100,000 years ago in the Pleistocene Era. Evidence suggests that the Passenger Pigeon's range extended much further west than it did in modernity, but it's impossible to know their abundance in this region and time.
While always hunted by Native Americans, it wasn't until Europeans arrived in North America that the populations of Passenger Pigeons began to plummet. Due to their large numbers, the pigeons became known as a cheap food source, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. Widespread deforestation and shrinkage of large breeding populations added additional stressors on the species, and the populations slowly declined between 1800 and 1870. Between 1870 and 1890, the population dropped dramatically. The species nested in large communal nesting grounds, and hunters would often target these locations for killing. The last large nesting was in Petoskey, Michigan in 1878, where 50,000 birds were killed daily over a span of 5 months. The nesting attempt was a failure, and a second attempt by the remnants of that population were slaughtered by professional hunters before they had the chance to raise any young. After 1897, only small groups or individual birds were seen, and most often were shot on sight. The last confirmed wild bird was shot in Illinois in 1901. The combination of hunting and deforestation has been referred to a "Blitzkrieg" against the Passenger Pigeon, and it has been labeled one of the greatest and most senseless human-induced extinctions in history.
The very last living Passenger Pigeon was called Martha. She was a resident at the Cincinnati Zoo until her passing in the afternoon of September 1st, 1914. It's widely accepted that she died at about 29 years old."
